Post-Game Quotes: Ohio State

Michigan State Head Coach Mel Tucker
Like every week, I want to thank our medical and our operations staff who continue to work tirelessly to give our student-athletes an opportunity to play each week. And God knows we need to play each week so we can get better and find out what we can do and what we need to do moving forward.

We're working to build a team, building on a process and hammering a culture that will allow us to have some consistency in performance and that's what we're looking for right now. I wanted to see us come back and have a consistent performance – offense, defense and special teams, playing complementary football today - and I didn't see that. So, obviously we have a lot of work to do. I thought we played hard in spurts, but we need to play smarter and be more consistent. I believe that once we figure out what it takes to be consistent on a day-to-day basis with our guys, then we'll have a better performance and have an opportunity to beat good teams.

I want to give Ohio State credit, obviously because they have some good players and they're well-coached. With that being said, turnovers will kill you, as we know. Not being able to get first downs, not being able to sustain drives, not being able to convert on third down and then not being able to run the ball the way we need to run the ball and control the line of scrimmage. Defensively, we know we have to stop the run, we knew we had an athletic quarterback that we needed to contain in the scramble game, and we didn't do that. We knew we needed to contain him in the designed quarterback runs and didn't do that. We knew we couldn't give up explosive plays in the run game and the pass game and we gave those up. On special teams, we weren't a factor for the most part. And so, like I told the team afterwards, the only thing that I know how to do is to immediately go back and watch the tape, look and see what happened and look to make the corrections. That's part of the process. There is no 24 hours about it, we have to do that right now. I told the players they need to watch the tape tonight and then get started on Penn State tonight, which we will do as a staff, so we can get ready to move on and have a better performance.

I was very disappointed today on how we played, and we need to do a better job with our guys to get more out of them. We need to figure out how to do that and we need to figure it out quickly. Outings like this are not acceptable – I don't care who we are playing. Even though that was a good team, when I turn on the film I'm going to be sick with some of the things that we did and some of the plays we left on the field. That's execution. I told the guys, I've been in a lot of big games and big games come down to execution. Having discipline to do your job on a consistent basis against good players. Being intensely poised and being able to execute on each down for 60 minutes, not just in spurts, but consistently. So we need to work towards being able to do that. That's going to start with the film study and it's going to the truth about what we are and what we are not right now, and how do we need to get to where we want to be. That process starts in about an hour as soon as I can get back over to the office.

I know Coach Day and all those that were affected by COVID, obviously our hearts and our prayers go out to them for a full recovery. Obviously the game is important, but the health and safety of everybody involved – players, support staff, coaches – is actually more important. So, again, my thoughts and prayers go out to Coach Day and any of his players and staff that were affected by COVID.

I want to thank our fans for their continued support of our program, as we work to build this thing to last, so that we can win at some consistent level and beat good teams. We need to be more tough, mentally and physically, and that is going to come through practice and preparation throughout the week. So whatever we have to do to get that is what we'll do. It's not going to be easy. It's going be uncomfortable for everyone involved. But, you know, it takes what it takes, and at some point we will be consistent. We will be able to play at a higher level, and we will be able to beat good teams. I'm looking for that to happen sooner rather than later. Because even though there's a certain amount of patience to have in order to build and establish the culture and hammer in the process, there's also a high level of urgency and intensity that goes with that. Obviously, days like this only fan the flames. We got to get better faster. I am not about this long term deal. We need to get something done right now. So, whether it's we do on the field things that we do, off the field to help prepare give ourselves the best chance, then the recruiting. We need to grind that out, and be relentless on that front as well. Because quite frankly, I believe that we are better than this. Some may disagree, but based on what I see on tape, we are better than what we showed today. So, ultimately, I have to do a better job getting out of these players what they have.

We are not playing up to our full potential in my opinion. So that's my mindset moving forward is what we need to do, immediately to get better, right now. We need to have a much better football team. We go to Happy Valley, we go to State College. We go to play Penn State. We got to be better on offense, defense and special teams.

So after we watch this tape that is all I am going to be focused on. Getting better and getting ready for Penn State. We got to get back on the field, hopefully we can stay COVID-free. Hopefully they can be on track. But we need to play, we need to play football, we need to play bad. We need to continue to build and find out who we are and what we can do and what we need. So with that, I will open it up to questions.

On the current quarterback situation...
Yeah, Rocky (Lombardi) is banged up I don't know what the extent is, I'll find out a little bit later. We'll see how he is. I know he'll be ready when he's ready. Payton (Thorne) did some good things, obviously we're able to move the ball, whatever sustained drives consistently, but we weren't able to move the ball as spurts. So, we need to be able to build on those things that we did well, just like every week. Spurts are not going to get it. You can't play in sections, can't play in spurts. You got to be consistent in performance and it's not just up to one guy.

On his reaction to the penalty on the sideline..
It was a 15-yard penalty. It was an undisciplined penalty. I don't like those.

On getting players to play with toughness and poise..
It's called discipline. You have to confront and demand that. If you don't have the discipline to do your job then eventually you are going to hurt the football team. It is not acceptable and it is either correctable or not. If it is not correctable then it means we need to make a change. We are going to find out if it is correctable or not.

On a more conservative approach…
I thought if we could get it, I would have gone for it. I think we had another one, it was a fourth and one, on our own side of the field and we went for it and made it. I've gone for it on fourth down before, if we think we can get it, then we'll go. If we think it's better for us to pooch it and punt, we'll do that. It's based on a set of circumstances and then we go. There's not a fear factor involved, it's just a decision. It's easy to sit back in the air conditioning and say we should have went for it and we didn't, we didn't go for it that's part of the deal. We didn't go for it, so we punt, sometimes we go for it, sometimes we make it, sometimes we don't. I didn't look at it as being conservative, but that's for you to decide.

On a lot of fair catches…
We had a game plan where we would fair catch some and some that we would return. Based upon what they were doing and what the hangtimes on the kicks were. Based on what we thought we could get done with the guys we had out there blocking, so we fair caught some and then some were returnable, and we were able to get some returns on some of those.

On balancing next week and next season…
There is no balance. There is no balance, you just got to do it. It's like how you balance family and football, like wife and kids and football and all that. There is no balance, it takes what it takes. You can't be at a soccer game or lacrosse game when you need to be at practice or need to worry about recruiting. There is no such thing as balance in terms of certain times of the year, it's a lifestyle, and so you figure it out. I'm not looking to balance anything out. I'm just figuring out a way to get it done.

On Ohio State's ability to win on the line…
Obviously, we didn't do a good job on the quarterback run game, which is technique. We got out-athleted, we weren't as athletic on the edge to be able to get it done. I got to take a look at the tape to be able to see that. I think a lot of it was technique to do your job. You saw last week the quarterback can run the ball, it kills a defense, and we gave up some big play runs. Then at the end of the game when they basically have a backup guy in there trying to run the ball out, they ran the same play they ran in the first half. Same thing, basically just a read zone type deal and the guy basically hits his head on the goal post, untouched. Obviously, it's technique and fundamentals and the discipline to do your job. There might be a discrepancy on athletic ability, being there but not being able to make the play. They had a lot to do with their run game, there were a lot of times when they ran the ball, we knocked it out, we knocked it back and then when you give huge chunks of plays, huge chunks of yards on basic run balls, then they are going to have 300 yards rushing. For us we weren't able to get any chunks in the run game, other than when our quarterback was running around. We didn't get it done run defense and we didn't get it done offensively running the ball. That's the bottom line, you got to give Ohio State credit. We basically got stoned and we got to look at the tape and find out why. I have a pretty good idea, but I have to look at the tape and we got to see exactly what it was so we can be exact in our coaching and look to fix it. If you can't run the ball and are one dimensional, if you can't stop the run, even if it's a quarterback run, it's not good. It is hard to stop people when you are doing that. You got to be able to control the line of scrimmage.

On positives of the game…
I can't think of any right now. I know the guys continued to play and I didn't see guys quitting in the game. I saw guys wanting to go out and play and still felt like we could get a drive going and felt like we could go out there and stop them. I saw guys that it bothered them when we weren't able to make the plays and they care. Those are positives and I think the most positive that I can think of right now is that we got another game, thank God, that we can win the last game of the season. That's a positive for me because we got an opportunity to go back and look at the tape and get ready for the next one because if this was the last game of the season, we had to end like this it makes for a long offseason. The positive deal is that we have an opportunity next week, hopefully we all stay COVID free and get the game in and then we can get a chance to practice and then we can play. I think that it's very positive for us because we need it.

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